Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) is a protocol suite for securing Internet Protocol (IP) communications by authenticating and encrypting each IP packet of a communication session. IPsec also includes protocols for establishing mutual authentication between agents at the beginning of the session and negotiation of cryptographic keys to be used during the session.
IPsec is an end-to-end security scheme operating in the Internet Layer of the Internet Protocol Suite. It can be used in protecting data flows between a pair of hosts (host-to-host), between a pair of security gateways (network-to-network), or between a security gateway and a host (network-to-host).
Typically, IPsec implementation inside a router requires a user to first identify the IP interface of the router. Further, the user is required to identify the router's IP address on which the traffic is originated. Further, the router is used as a local end-point in the IPsec tunnel setup whenever possible. This is hard from the user's perspective since the user is required to have knowledge and understanding of the inner working of the router and what the network interfaces are available inside the router. This is even harder for the user if the traffic to be protected must to go to a specific VLAN and/or the traffic involve serial data packets or other non-IP packets.
It is desirable to have methods and apparatuses for establishing an IPsec (Internet Protocol Security) VPN (Virtual Private Network) tunnel to a wireless access node of a wireless mesh network.